


honey, who set the curtains on fire?

by tvxq



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, boys being stupid n fallin in love, sehun needs to Go To Sleep, this is obscure as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvxq/pseuds/tvxq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>picture this: a love story, only it's dry packet ramyum on the roof in the middle of summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	honey, who set the curtains on fire?

**Author's Note:**

> • i have no explanation lmao

either kyungsoo calls zitao or zitao calls kyungsoo and it goes something like this: _“the curtains were/are on fire.”_ or, alternatively, _“did he set the curtains on fire again?”_

the case of oh verses do. kyungsoo sighs. “just come pick him up, okay?”

but it’s not always that easy, even then. zitao doesn’t like the idea of coming only when he’s called, and going when he’s pushed, gnashed teeth and snarls and the kind of irregular tug of _wantneed_ and then _stop, i need you to go._ he says yes, regardless.

“we’re at lotte mart in hapjeong.” kyungsoo says, and he pushes hair out of his face - zitao can hear the gesture. can hear the sound of a bus hurrying past. or maybe he’s listening too much and he thinks that he should probably pay less attention to whatever happens around him - worry more about himself then this. he thinks about what happened clean cut huang zitao. neat denim hadn’t ever been his thing.

he pulls jeans on anyway, phone tucked between shoulder and ear. kyungsoo breathes in before he speaks, defeated. “you know the one. there’s a norebang two doors down, that therapeutic massage place. i don’t fuckin’ know, tao, just _please_ \- hurry up.” 

 _do kyungsoo_. zitao nods, but he realises his mistake and speaks as quickly as he can. “yeah.” he says. one leg to go. the jeans are all crinkled, and zitao wonders when he started to forget doing his own laundry. sehun’s shirt is on the back of his desk chair. it smells like cigarette smoke and taemin’s apartment, but they’d argued about wardrobe space one night after sehun had come home late and they’d fallen asleep with that back and forth kind of bitchiness that made it easier to think about when sehun wasn’t there.

“yeah, no, sure. thanks for the call.”

zitao reaches for his keys. he debates a first aid kid, because god knows, and then he’s the antsy-up and down explosion of misunderstanding and worried, and he closes the door without a second thought.

the drive to hapjeong isn’t far. zitao tries to convince himself he has hours to prepare, but the next thing he knows, he’s pulling the kia up to the curve and he can see the outline of sehun’s legs as he swings them up against the icebox. a 24 hour lotte mart is no place to be in the middle of the night, but they’re here.

“hey.” he says, jumping out of the front seat. sehun looks put-together. he breathes easy as soon as he can, the heat of summer at night pushing his hands back into his pockets. he should have invested in a lot of things, a thinner shirt one of them. joonmyun would have something to say about this, no doubt. zitao sucks in a breath, and it feels like the first lungful of air he’s ever had.

kyungsoo waves, but he doesn’t look happy. shredded denim jacket and what looks like a gun shoved in his waistband. they’ve been doing this long enough that zitao doesn’t flinch at the sight of weapons anymore, not when he’s seen sehun take apart a 9mm glock in under thirty seconds. “it’s calming.” he’d promised. “really. like working out a puzzle. or a rubix cube - you know there’s a dude in china that can have one of those solved in like…point eight seconds. or something.”

“thanks for coming.” kyungsoo says, snarky. there’s a bruise on the side of his cheek. zitao wonders if sehun had put it there. he doesn’t ask.

sehun waves, grinning like a puppy and he bounces off of the icebox without saying anything. he’s not the type to pull zitao in for a windswept kiss, not in the middle of the night at lotte mart, not with kyungsoo watching, and certainly not like this. he does anyway, and zitao nearly forgets how to breathe.

“hyung.” he says between kisses. knocking the wind out of zitao’s chest and replacing it with fire. “i missed you.” sehun says, looking like a puppy. he’s so thin, and zitao wants to fold him up and look after him. it’s getting harder, though. kyungsoo doesn’t look impressed.

“i’m bailing.” he says, to nobody. he kicks up his heels and turns around. the subway’s in the opposite direction, but kyungsoo will have some chaebol escort, no doubt. sehun does not watch him go.

“babe, did you set the curtains on fire?” zitao asks, when they’re in the car. sehun in the front seat is ridiculously grounding. he doesn’t even have to ask him to put a seatbelt on.

“it was an accident.” sehun promises. zitao huffs.

“d’you wanna go home to mine?” dropping sehun off at jongin’s house is never the ideal option, but there’s no force-sehun-into-safety option anymore. they’re all a little messy.

“i don’t mind.” sehun says. “i’m sorry you had to pick me up. i get the feeling kyungsoo’s a little pissed at me.”

he takes a strange sense of pride in being the designated sehun Caretaker. he wonders, if he were the one in trouble, if he called, would sehun come running? it’s not really a question at all though. zitao grips the steering wheel a little harder.

“you did ruin his curtains.” zitao reasons. “there’s that.”

sehun is inclined to agree. “good point. they were pretty fuckin’ ugly though. please.”

zitao laughs, and the restlessness is gone. “yeah. they were.”

they drive in silence. zitao lives in the nicer district, where apartment blocks are gated in and there’s a tiny little courtyard before every house. trimmed green gardens and the rest of it. sehun would probably sit on the hedges and strum his guitar, and he’d look right at home. zitao thinks about the time they’d spend alone in the park at yonsei university and the way sehun had laughed. it’s a little louder then he wants to think, though, so he bristles as he parks.

“i forgot your house was so fancy.” sehun says. “can we sleep on the roof?” 

  
zitao can’t remember knowing if his apartment allowed roof access or not. he might have a key. “yeah, okay.” he says, and sehun’s grin is worth every star in the sky. they hold hands as they wander up the hallway, which is weird, but it’s not bad.

“we need blankets,” sehun says rationally. “and snacks.”

zitao grins. “there’s soju in the fridge, i’ll grab dovets.”

summer in seoul isn’t something to forget. sehun wanders around without a shirt on, and gets mad at zitao for doing the same. he tastes like wine coolers and air freshener. it’s better on the poolside of some kid’s summer house party, that one weekend they went to busan with yixing and zitao had come back sunburnt and whiny, and sehun rubbing aloe vera on the back of his shoulders in the back seat of yixing’s jeep.

“it’s like a million degrees, do we need blankets?” sehun whines. zitao flicks him on the side of his arm before he ducks into his bedroom.

“you’ll get cold, even at 2am.” he promises, adamant that sehun can still hear him. there’s the sound of the fridge opening, and not a lot else.

“i found the soju!” sehun claims, triumphantly. zitao makes a _hurrah!_ noise, before stepping back out into the kitchen, arm full of blankets and a few pillows.

“grab some packet ramyum as well.” zitao urges. “we can eat it raw.”

anybody else would call zitao crazy. sehun grins. maybe they’re their own little mess. dried ramyum isn’t the end of the world.

ascending the stairs then, giggling like little kids. zitao about two keys on his keyring before very nearly giving up. “it’s locked.” he claims, defeated by all accounts. sehun staggers forward and eyes the lock with heavy suspicion in his eyes. the troublemaker look is back. it doesn’t dissipate ease, though, and he’s seen it before, so many times.

“i could pick the lock?” he says, and zitao’s eyebrows crease. sehun, no, he thinks, but sehun’s already digging though his pocket.

“i got a bobby pin. like, somewhere.” sehun says, and zitao can’t really stop anything from occurring anyway, his hands are pretty much full. he sighs, and sehun only sends him a grin before he pulls a pocket knife out of his shoe.

“jesus christ.” zitao huffs, because it’s oh sehun, and of course he’s picking the lock to the rooftop with a knife and a bobby pin, and zitao stands, quite defeated in the corner with his arms filled with blankets, pillows and the rest.

“this is a bad idea - i’ll get a key.” zitao amends, as soon as he realises the gravity of their situation, because sehun breaking and entering is one thing, but sehun doing it under zitao’s wing is another. he pouts, kneeling by the lock, knife-in-hand ready to attempt some form of illicit behaviour. zitao raises an eyebrow.

“no lock picking.” he says, “i’ll try my other key.” zitao likes to give up. surprisingly enough, the garage key fits in the rooftop door, and zitao grins smugly where he can. sehun, sufficiently put out, huffs.

“see, the legal way usually works.” zitao chides, striding through the doorway. sehun wanders behind, muttering.

“yeah but it’s boriiiing.” he announces, drawing out the words. zitao looks over his shoulder, half fond half annoyed, and he’s never even been on the roof before. there’s fake grass stretched along, a boardwalk and a deck, like most of the other places, a rooftop garden usually managed by the landlord. content on staying inside and nursing baby cacti, zitao finds himself torn between surprise and awe.

“what the hell this was the best idea.” sehun says, bouncing around. “we should sleep in the greenhouse.” he says, but zitao can only imagine being woken up in a room of glass in the middle of summer, and he’d very much like to not melt.

“we can’t see the stars there though.” he complains, amending. sehun wrinkles his nose.

“hyung, we can’t see the stars at all. light pollution, and all that.”

he has a point. zitao refuses to let it be acknowledged.

“my building, my rules.” 

“you don’t even own-“

“ _sehun_.” zitao warns, mocking. sehun sticks out his tongue but bounds over to the decking in the corner anyway. he dumps the snacks in a pile, and sits with his legs hanging over, waiting for an incapacitated zitao to lumber over with their blankets.

“hurry up, old man.” he calls, grinning.

“i oughta hit you.” zitao snaps, offended. “ _old man_ \- we’re barely a year apart!” the tongue comes out again, blowing a raspberry, and zitao wonders if sehun really is a five year old. maybe he is an old man in comparison to the child sitting before him.

zitao retaliates by tossing the entire pile of bedding onto sehun, knocking him over with a huff. he lets out a brief laugh before a dovet swallows him, and zitao stands up onto the deck and grabs a packet of shin ramyum.

“you can make the bed.” he tells sehun, voice heavy with salt. zitao’s passive aggressive aesthetic is hardly marred by sehun’s constant digs. he can remain strong to the ways of the petty.

“fine.” sehun says, but zitao can barely make out words underneath all the linen. in about five seconds, sehun has remerged, pushed their things in a pile and laid down over it.

“bed done.” he proclaims. zitao raises an eyebrow. maybe it will always be like this, like cardboard cities and rooftop sleepovers and warming soju. and summer. warm, even in the middle of the night. seoul’s heatwaves are no joke.

“you’re the worst.” zitao complains, but makes no objection when sehun grabs at his biceps and tugs him down. but the soju, he wants to say, and thinks about how sehun giggles when he’s drunk. he doesn’t move though, lets himself be pulled, bringing the packet ramyum with him.

“you love me.” sehun says, smug. zitao looks up, sprawled across his lap. he can see the curve of sehun’s nose, the dips of his cheeks. he thinks _fuck, maybe i do._

it’s not a question. he answers anyway. “yeah,” his laugh is a little bitter. tastes more like autumn then summer. “maybe.”

sehun snorts. “sure, maybe. it’s a solid seven out of ten.”

“that makes no sense.” zitao tells him. not much of what they do does. otherwise, they wouldn’t be here. sehun, kicked out of hyung’s for a fire he didn’t light, zitao, clean cut zitao, laying in the arms of a criminal. it’s funny, he thinks, how much nothing can make sense, but he guffaws when sehun tickle-kisses him in retaliation and it all seems to fit anyway.

“alright, alright.” he heaves, breathless and exhausted. it’s warm, pressed up against sehun in the middle of the night. good warm. qingdao warm. sehun feels like _home_. “a solid eight, then.” 

  
it doesn’t make sense. sehun snickers. “eight will do.” he says, with conviction.

it better.

**Author's Note:**

> • so i wrote this...in like half an hour?????   
>  • idek man im just as confused as u r   
>  • i just rlly...rlly...like taohun


End file.
